


Repetition

by KaneCorp



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Dismemberment, Highshift's Even Worse Horrible Awful Night, Implied Cannibalism, Implied Death, Implied Violence, Not Reader-Insert, Smoketrail's Very Bad No Good Night, every character is and OC, giant insects, techno-organic space creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21699946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaneCorp/pseuds/KaneCorp
Summary: Highshift desperately needs to rest, but he can't manage it with all that racket going on. Things just get worse from there.a small vignette into the kind of shit that happens regularly for Smoketrail
Kudos: 4





	Repetition

**Author's Note:**

> first time writing anything for tf so don't @ me

Another bump, another crash, and that’s it. You can’t rest like this. There’s only a handful of other mechs on the ship, and as inconsiderate as some of them can be, _most_ of them were already recharging before you even got to your hab. And yet, someone seems to be throwing a tantrum, and it sounds like it’s coming from the rec room. Maybe if you ignore it long enough they’ll wear themselves out and stop, or somebody else will get up and deal with it? It’s only a moment of futile hope, tossing on your berth to seek comfort, before another fragging crash. You hear something actually shatter, and you desperately hope it wasn’t the vid screen. Again. 

So…… nobody? Nobody else is gonna deal with this? It has to be you? You really don’t want to deal with whichever one of your friends is in such an apparently destructive mood when you’re this tired… With a huffy ex-vent, you sit upright and swing your legs over the edge of the berth. Scuffed pedes shuffle on the floor as you stall yet again, gusting another ex-vent as you convince yourself to actually get up and handle it. 

Your reluctance rockets right into concern when you hear something _crunch_ , like groaning metal being wrenched apart, and that’s - well, that’s far from a simple hissy fit. In almost a rush you’re out the door and into the darkened hallway, only dimly lit during designated non-operational hours. Out here you can hear the racket clearer, and you’re already shuffling (as quickly as you can without tripping on whatever scattered mess your crewmates leave around) when there’s another echoing _skrunk_. It sounded… vaguely wet, and that’s really not the kind of noise you want to hear on a spaceship inhabited solely by mechanoids. Not that it’d be a good noise for anyone anywhere probably, but still. 

You pick up the pace, and try to figure out who exactly it is you’re rushing towards. It sounds like your guess of the rec room was right the closer you get, and Wheelthrust was the last one in there if you’re remembering right. He was telling Kettle something about ‘one more episode, then‘ll recharge, swear’, but he’d been almost giddy as your minibot captain left him be with nary but a fond sigh. What would have made him change moods so fast? Another wet crunch reaches your audials as you round on the closed door to the rec room, and you could swear you were picking up some weak peals of static from the other side.

Something churned in your tanks. Sonictalon and Feintdive’s habsuite was closer than yours, surely they should have noticed something by now, but you never heard any steps but yours on the way here. They couldn’t have been _that_ deep in recharge, could they? A shaking servo presses the controls by the door, and you suddenly realize how tightly clamped your plating has been this entire time. You were already exhausted, but now your nerves are climbing higher with each nano-klik and you have to deny a ping advising immediate recharge because this is bad. It’s just _bad,_ you’re not even sure in what way or why you’re so certain yet, but it’s Bad and you have to- you have to do something. 

There’s a hiss before the door even starts sliding open, and you don’t realize it came from inside the room at all because you’re too busy processing the nasty blat of static that was followed by another painful shriek of torn metal and - Primus, help you - the _smell._ Like warm and damp and spilled energon, and you’re almost glad it’s entirely dark past the doorway because suddenly you’re scared of what you’d see. No, no, you were already scared, standing outside the door and feeling alone in what had been the coziest ship you’d ever been on. Now you’re terrified beyond belief. 

A light winks at you from the darkness, hazy pink and oblong, and it takes effort to get your vocalizer to cooperate because you recognize that light. “Feintdive?” there’s a hazy overlay to the word, and your plating nearly chokes your intake when something skitters. Then the sound of circuits shorting and the light of Feintdive’s optic flickers, then fades. You don’t understand.

You stare, standing rattled in the doorway, no lights but the ones behind you and no response from the darkness in front of you. Maybe you should move. All you manage is a quivering in-vent before there’s two new points of light, dark crimson in colour and far to the right, nearly at the floor. These you don’t recognise, even as they rise, moving upwards and laterally, new lights glowing in their wake. Two rows of red onlining, following as those - they’re optics, aren’t they? Whose? - come more centered in front of you, and the trails circle the room, even crossing themselves in several places. 

You’re shaking. You should do something. Your vocalizer fits when you realize the skittering is back, and Primus it’s so _loud_ , it’s echoing and it’s _wrong_. It doesn’t sound like metal, the vibration off just enough to suggest something organic, but what could- 

_Thunk._

_Hisssssssssss. Skt skt skt skt sktsktsktsktskt._

Is that-? Oh, Primus, it is. Oh, Kettle, what happened? Where’s the rest of you? 

Slowly, Kettle’s severed arm rolls to a stop just within the light of the doorway, and dimly you realize something chirps in the back of your processor, telling you what would make a noise like that. Chitin. Another chirp as you finally recognize the optics. It’s that straggler, the lone ‘Con Kettle had agreed to take on board at the last stop. He said some weird slag sometimes, but his actions had been nice enough, almost considerate even, so they’d given the O.K. on him sticking around til the next stop. None of you had even seen his alt mode yet, he was so fresh a face, but you’re remembering the dark gleam of his kibble.

No, his _chitin_ , the slagger had _chitin_ the entire time. Your tanks roil and the urge to purge is unbearable, but you beat it back. Your glossa feels far too heavy as you struggle to work your vocalizer around his designation. “Smoketrail?” Static bleeds into every syllable, and you think you might shake yourself to pieces. “W-what’s going on in here?”

The only response you get is more hissing, and you can still hear the rest of whatever the Pit his alt mode is writhing around in the darkness. Maybe you should run. But you don’t. You can’t. Your legs aren’t responding right now, so you try to keep talking. “C’mon, you don’t have to curl up in the dark, just, uh-” It’s weird. All of it’s weird, yes, and terrifying because you’re pretty certain Feintdive and Kettle are definitely in pieces if not entirely dead, and Sonictalon and Wheelthrust can’t be doing any better. But the fact he isn’t responding at all, it’s distinctly weird.

You hadn’t known Smoketrail for long, obviously, and sometimes what he said was so obtuse as to be pointless, but he still spoke at least an average amount. Also, it’s weird that you’re standing here thinking how it’s weird that the fragger that is apparently some kind of techno-organic _space_ _bug_ isn’t replying to you when you’re pretty sure he just killed and dismembered most of your closest friends and is now looking squarely at _you_. You should definitely run.

The low-level hissing turns into a piercing shriek, and there’s the clamoring of whatever bits weird semi-organic bugs have for mouths following behind you as you finally frantically fling yourself backwards into the hallway, turning and running as an uncomfortable amount of centipede comes careening from the rec room after you. The screaming feels wrong, like even his vox box is semi-organic at this point, and it bleeds into the noise, but you don’t care. You’re too busy running for your life to want to ponder how none of you noticed before. Maybe Sonictalon did, but he was always too accepting, to nice to be a proper ‘Con, so he never pointed it out to the rest of you. Who knows. It’s not like you can ask him anymore.

The entire ship rocks as Smoketrail slams into the walls as you round a corner, metron upon metron upon metron upon metron following as he wails and screeches and skitters and _doesn’t stop chasing you_. You’ve never really regretted being a monoformer until now, with so much clattering chitin and metal gaining on you in the halls of your own home. 

There aren’t many places to run. Your crew had never needed a larger ship, and they’d never wanted one either. All of you liked the closeness. You offline your optics as you feel the first spattering of whatever oral fluids techno-organic space centipedes have lands against the back of your helm and your ankle twists, sending you lurching off balance. You never hit the ground.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


You online in a haze. You keep your optics powered down until you’re fully back, testing each protocol and procedure and process as they become available to you. You have to. You’re always scared that you’ll find something taken from you again, or worse - given. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since that last happened. You refuse to think about it.

As you finish flexing each digit you can, you heave an ex-vent and almost groan. The smell is thick, heavy with the drying energon from who knows how many mechs. Well, you know, actually. You remember exactly how many were on the ship with you. Still are, probably, but definitely in more pieces. The thought passes, and that's when you do groan.

This always happens. You don’t know how it does, what the trigger is, anything, but you have guesses. Every time, you warn them. They never listen. How many times since you've left have you woken up, energon drying on your limbs, the heavy weight of different metals sitting fresh in your tank? How much of the mechs you barely knew did you leave scattered across their own home this time? How much of them did you tear apart and devour in your blind fugue? You can't afford think about it right now. There's a new ship to figure out how to pilot. 

A final steadying in-vent and you finally online your optics, resigned to face what you’ve done once more.


End file.
